Legendary | Worth driving from anywhere
Hot Dog Charlie’s
Review by: ayersian
Discovered on a Roadfood gathering in Albany, Hot Dog Charlie’s is one of a handful of stands in the area (including Famous Lunch and Gus’s) that feature mini dogs slathered with Greek-style chili sauce. Founder Strates Fentekes opened New Way Lunch in 1922 and sold these mini dogs, often stacked up his arm for dressing (just like Rhode Island’s New York System), for a nickel apiece. Customers began calling him “Charlie,” and the place expanded and was renamed Hot Dog Charlie’s. Now with four locations in Cohoes, Rensselaer, Clifton Park, and Troy, the place still cranks out platefuls of inexpensive dogs. Jars of their famous chili sauce are lined up on the counter to take home, and their website offers shipping around the country to sauce-starved customers.
These diminutive beauties — a snappy little frank measuring three inches in natural casing — are grilled, snuggled into custom-baked buns, and dressed with yellow mustard, chopped onions, and a thin but meaty chili. Three or four mini dogs easily make a meal, and some folks take out bags of twenty or thirty at a time. In keeping with the upstate New York tradition of meatless offerings on Friday, the fish fry is available every day: a curly fried strip of cod, liberally doused with tartar sauce and served in a regular-sized hot dog bun. In addition to a few mini dogs, one must leave room for at least one of their exceptional cheeseburgers. The beef is ground fresh daily by a local butcher, and the hand-formed patties are cooked on the griddle until they form a slight crust, to which cheese is then added. Topped with mustard, ketchup, and tender grilled onions inside a soft bun, this first-rate burger proves that Hot Dog Charlie’s is certainly not a one-trick (hot dog?) pony.
Directions & Hours
Information
| Price | $ |
| Seasons | All |
| Meals Served | Lunch, Dinner |
| Credit Cards Accepted | No |
| Alcohol Served | No |
| Outdoor Seating | No |
What To Eat
Hot Dog Charlie’s Recipes
Discuss
What do you think of Hot Dog Charlie’s?
One Response to “Hot Dog Charlie’s”
Delores Hart
June 20th, 2023
ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE.I have been a loyal Hot Dog Charlies customer since 1965. Today is sadly the last time I will ever eat there again. There were two of us ,the bill was $32 Regardless of the incredibly rude women taking our order I out of pure habit gave a $5 tip when I placed our order.. we ordered two vanilla milkshakes as we always have, mini chili dogs and cheese fries. The first disappointment came when we took the first sip of our vanilla milkshakes but these are no longer milkshakes they were a lukewarm soft serve nasty tasting fluff like material, they are no longer made with vanilla ice cream and milk I brought one of the milkshakes up to the window where the two very rude elderly women working had handed us our food I told one of the women that the milkshakes were not very good, they were made how they used to make them and if I could please just have a soda instead I never even asked for my $12 back that it cost me for the two shakes (they are now charging $6 per shake!)she was extremely offended by this and told me I had to go stand in line again to get my soda so I had to go stand behind four people taking a good 20 minutes before I finally got to the the register all while my hot dogs and french fries were sitting on my table getting cold.. at that point one of the elderly women began yelling at me telling me there’s nothing wrong with the shake it was a brand new “machine” confirming that it’s no longer ice cream and milk, it’s soft serve a non dairy chemical mix..they were using a soft serve machine..and charging $6 for one of these “shakes” she gave me my soda and wanted me to pay for that as well but considering the fact that she was being so rude and didn’t even offer me a refund for the shakes I just walked back to my table where my friend was attempting to eat his hot dogs I noticed that he was not eating them as quickly as normal and there were quite a few still left he told me the sauce was horrific it had so much salt on it that it barely edible , it was NOT the same chili sauce that had been sold to me for the ptevious 50 years, and the cheese fries tasted like fish and had the fake orange cheese on top the whole meal was horrible, absolutely horrible, we ended up throwing at least half of the meal away, and to top it off, the entire time that we were sitting there the two women working were talking as loudly as they possibly could about how much of a jerk I was because I did not like my shake..it was a terrible experience I will never go back. If the current owner of Hot Dog Charlie’s should read this review I would like a refund in full and if that should occur I will update my review.